Funds will allow for accelerated enzyme development by leveraging directed evolution and machine learning computational techniques.
Entropix, an early-stage biotechnology company focused on the directed evolution of enzymes, has completed its first funding round with investment from Deepbridge Capital (Deepbridge). Deepbridge is a growth capital organisation whose portfolio includes growth-focused companies in the technology, life science, and renewable energy sectors.
Entropix will use the funds to expedite the development of its technology platform, investigate the application of machine learning in the evolution of new enzyme variants, and advance its directed evolution pipeline. The injection of funding will enable Entropix to recruit new talent in a variety of disciplines and make the operational investments needed to realise its commercial and scientific objectives.
The investment is a strong statement of support for Entropix’s goal of developing a portfolio of resilient, high-performance enzymes that revolutionise aspects of medicine, recycling, manufacturing, food and flavouring, and molecular diagnostics.
Co-founder and CEO Dr Rob Rule, who recently opened a laboratory at Sci-Tech Daresbury, said, “We are delighted to confirm that Entropix has completed its first seed funding round, with investment from Deepbridge Capital. This investment will enable us to accelerate the development of enzymes using directed evolution and computational biology. Our technology can make a significant impact on several markets including plastics degradation, diagnostics, food ingredients, pharmaceuticals, and sustainable manufacturing. Many thanks to Alison Maughan and the Deepbridge Life Sciences team for their support and funding.”
Dr Rule added, “The considerable sector experience and capital Deepbridge brings to Entropix will help the company further develop its technological foundation and transition towards full commercialisation in the months ahead”.
Alison Maughan, Life Sciences Investment Manager at Deepbridge Capital, said, “We are delighted to welcome Entropix to the Deepbridge life sciences EIS portfolio. The company’s novel enzyme technology has the potential to solve a number of significant global challenges and we are excited to be able to support the Company from this early-stage of its development. This is exactly the type of growth-focused and impactful company that the Enterprise Investment Scheme was designed to support.”
About Entropix
Founded in 2021 by Dr Rob Rule and Prof David Hornby, Entropix is a biotechnology company that specialises in the development of high-performance enzymes by employing state-of-the-art experimental molecular biology and computational methods. Based at Sci-Tech Daresbury in Cheshire, UK, we use a highly specialised technology platform to identify novel genomic sequences and direct the evolution of novel enzymes with unique tertiary structures.
Unique skills and capabilities in genetic engineering, computational gene sequence analysis, enzyme structure analysis, and machine learning enable us to improve the performance of enzymes for a range of biological and industrial applications.
Enzymes are Nature’s catalysts, encoded by the genomes of all living organisms. Over more than 4 billion years of evolution, the nucleotide sequences associated with each enzyme have been subject to change. This is dramatically revealed by comparing the sequences encoding enzymes catalysing the same reaction from distantly related species.
Indeed, it is often possible to identify regions of amino acid sequences essential for enzyme activity, interspersed amongst others that are seemingly dispensable. However, a full understanding of the relationship between the sequence of an enzyme and its structure and function remains in its infancy for many classes of enzymes and proteins. Directed evolution provides an unprecedented way to accelerate evolution in the laboratory, compressing millions of years of evolutionary time into days.
As we increase the number of novel enzymes that we develop at Entropix within our directed evolution pipeline, the nucleotide and amino acid sequences generated are systematically logged which continually enhances our in silico predictive capabilities. A virtuous circle is created where the greater our predictive powers, the faster we can evolve new enzymes.
The scope for applying enzymes to address sectoral, environmental, and societal issues is broad although not yet fully established. The directed evolution of enzymes has the potential to solve historic and emergent challenges in diagnostics, life science, food ingredient, plastics, pharmaceutical, and manufacturing sectors.
For more information, please visit www.entropix.co.uk.
One Response
Directing enzyme evolution, by gene editing sounds interesting. The range of (very) commercially viable sectors this will be applicable to must be huge and choosing which to aim for first, one of your hardest decisions. Good luck!